Quentin Bega

A bit of Banter: 30- Deportees

There’s no fool like an old fool, they say, so what happens when a bunch of oul’ coots gather together to make music? The next series of posts may enlighten you as to the question just posed and may also, perhaps, enrage or entertain. Anything’s better than a yawn, I guess. These songs were the result of a few sessions around a table laden with alcoholic beverages of various kinds. Plonked in the centre of the table was a laptop with built-in mic that somehow survived the knocks and spillages that were part and parcel of the sessions.

Song 30: Deportees– I first played this song as a student in Belfast in 1969 at at a impromptu folk session on the beach at Bangor, County Down. From memory, I first heard the song from the singing of Judy Collins in the mid-60s. (Of course, the great Woody Guthrie wrote it originally)Perspective is a funny thing: the song commemorates a plane crash in 1948-a year before I was born. And still the drama plays out as I type this. Deportees in the 21st Century will be able to look down on the “wonderful Wall” promised by President Trump as they fly southwards to Mexico.

Deportees (Lockdown version 2020)

A bit of Banter: 29- Working Man

Song 29: Working Man– Another song from another era. First heard this sung in the 1990s by a singer from the Blue Mountains, west of Sydney, NSW, who looked and sounded like the writer and populariser of the song, Rita McNeil. It’s power is undeniable and, do you know something?: I can’t see any significant singer-songwriter penning a ballad about the trials and travails of ping-pong playing employees of Silicon Valley entrepreneurs as they struggle with code that will displace yet more workers and line the pockets of another generation of industrialists. But who knows? As someone once observed, prediction is very difficult, especially with regard to the future.

Working Man

A bit of Banter: 28- The Monaghan Twig

Song 28: The Monaghan Twig– This is an unadorned and brief essay during one of our sessions where the fiddle player and bodhran player had a bit of a go in one of the many refreshment breaks taken by the others in the group. These, although convivial in the extreme, militated against the most effective use of time for group practice. Still, who do we really have to please apart from ourselves?

The Monaghan Twig

A bit of Banter: 27- Denis Murphy’s/Rathlin Bog

Song 27: Denis Murphy’s (or Jim’s Da’s Polka)/The Rathlin Bog An Irish traditional fiddle tune passed down by the fiddler’s grandfather and mandolin-player’s father. We insert in the middle of this polka, an instrumental version of the song, The Rathlin Bog. When we were last practising, the fiddler’s five year-old son was there bopping to the music. And I guess that’s tradition- the passing on of a musical culture.

Denis Murphy’s/Rathlin Bog

A bit of Banter: Song 26- When the Boys Go Rolling Home

Song 26: When the Boys Go Rolling Home– This song, I first heard from the singing of Geraldine Doyle, I think. It is rather more light-hearted about homecoming than, say, Johnny, I Hardly Knew Ye. Or , indeed, that magnificent Bruce Dawe poem about the Vietnam War entitled, Homecoming. Not that the writer of the song, one Tommy Sands, is incapable of writing poignantly- I urge you to listen to There Were Roses, a brilliant song about the sectarian killings that blighted Northern Ireland for far too long. And there are fears that the dark times may come back again as a part of the unintended consequences of Brexit boysrollinghome

When the Boys Go Rolling Home

A bit of Banter: 25- Don’t Get Married Girls

Song 25: Don’t Get Married Girls– What a great song! Written by Leon Rosselson who has been around in the folk scene from the early 1960s. He is in his mid eighties now and still active and an activist. He is one of the characters I see as a role-model. It would be great to be still doing the rounds and playing in sessions at that age. Most of us in this little folk group have been married for decades, now. I’m just glad the song was not current when I was courting. We have been told on more than one occasion, after we have performed this satire, how lucky we are that the sentiments expressed here had not been articulated so compellingly way back then. “Why didn’t you bloody well sing this to me when we first met?”… “I might look stupid, but I’m really not!” is our invariably unarticulated riposte.

Don’t Get Married Girls

A bit of Banter: 24- The City of Chicago

Song 24: The City of Chicago– Written by Christy Moore’s brother, Luka Bloom, this is a firm favourite among listeners. The Irish have many bastions in the US: Chicago, Boston, and New York, to name just a few. And, as in England, the Irish were instrumental in building the infrastructure that helped propel the Industrial Age. As members, ourselves, of the Irish diaspora, songs like this have an added resonance for us.

The City of Chicago

A bit of Banter: 23- The Hills of Kerry

Song 23: The Hills of Kerry– This song may be known by another name. Indeed, when we can’t recall the names of songs and tunes we are very likely to make up a title that seems to fit the song or the tune. The waltz time and tempo here are very popular as vehicles for songs and tunes that have a nostalgic cast to them. Of course, when we were younger and full of (supply here your own metaphor or idiom that characterises the energy and folly of youth) we tended not to feature so many of this type of song…

Hills of Kerry

A bit of Banter: 22- The Lark in the Morning (instrumental)

There’s no fool like an old fool, they say, so what happens when a bunch of oul’ coots gather together to make music? The next series posts may enlighten you as to the question just posed and may also, perhaps, enrage or entertain. Anything’s better than a yawn, I guess. These songs were the result of a few sessions around a table laden with alcoholic beverages of various kinds. Plonked in the centre of the table was a laptop with built-in mic that somehow survived the knocks and spillages that were part and parcel of the sessions.

Song 22: The Lark in the Morning– There is a song with this title which we will get around to recording at some stage, but here is an instrumental that has the sort of energy we like and which always enlivens a session when we gather to bash a few numbers out, have a few soothing ales and shoot the breeze. Our fiddle player gives it some welly and we all charge in too. There is something particularly satisfying about playing Irish music at full tilt.

The Lark in the Morning (Instrumental)

A bit of Banter: 21- Rhonda Valley Girls

There’s no fool like an old fool, they say, so what happens when a bunch of oul’ coots gather together to make music? The next 20 posts may enlighten you as to the question just posed and may also, perhaps, enrage or entertain. Anything’s better than a yawn, I guess. These songs were the result of a few sessions around a table laden with alcoholic beverages of various kinds. Plonked in the centre of the table was a laptop with built-in mic that somehow survived the knocks and spillages that were part and parcel of the sessions.

Song 21: Rhonda Valley Girls– A rousing songs about Welsh miners. We have seen the sad decline of old industries and processes over the past few decades and know all about the fate of once-proud workers in occupations who find themselves out of work or offered a paltry alternative in the casualised service sector. The election of Donald Trump is, like Brexit, a manifestation of the anger of these folk who have been waiting vainly for at least a generation for the elites to offer them something more than promises come election time.

Rhonnda Valley Girls